Exploring the inconvenience of critical thinking

In this week’s episode of Two Inconvenient Women, Holly and Rachel talk about the inconvenience of critical thinking – for many reasons, one being its growing absence in our schools, despite the fact that leading reports into future-fit education all concur that it is a foundational skill needed for our changing world.

From the very get-go at ThoughtBox, we've had critical thinking as one of the three pillars of our work (Thinking, Feeling, Connecting) and designed all of our programmes to support the practice. One of the very first ThoughtBox slogans was 'Learning how (not what) to think'. Our very name as an organisation is a subtle invitation to be thinking 'outside of the box'. And yet it this is a skill that is both subtly and blatantly being removed from our education systems, whilst our dominant globalised culture is actively encouraging it out of us.

This week we discuss questions such as ‘What does it mean to think critically? Why is stepping back to ask deeper, more challenging questions becoming a lost art? What is being lost when we lose our ability to think outside of the box?’

In this episode we reference the following:

• UK Government's AI Plan - Guardian (news article)
• 1984 - George Orwell (novel)
• Online safety bill report - BBC (news article)
• The Divided Brain - Ian McGilchrist (TED video)
• Transforming Leadership course (online training)

Plus we reference research from some of the recent leading reports into a future-fit education:

• Future of Education (UNESCO)
• Times Education Commission (UK)
• Human Flourishing Report (PISA)
• Rebooting Education Report 2023 (UK)
• The Future of Education & Skills (OEDC)
• School Report – Pearson (UK)

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